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Virtualization

vSphere 5 Homelab – ESXi on Intel NUC

When you want to build a VMware vSphere Lab at home, Intel might have a great system for you: The Intel NUC family - The Next Unit of Computing. The system was initially designed to be used as home theater or digital jukebox. Due to it's power it is also a fully adequate replacement for a desktop computer. The Intel NUC is big on performance and surprisingly small in size and power consumption and thus makes it a great candidate for a virtualization home lab.

Intel-NUC-Box

The Intel NUC System is available as system board only and with a chassis. Currently there are 4 models available, beginning with an Intel Celeron processor and ending with a powerful Intel Core i5 vPro processor:

    • DC53427HYE Kit / D53427RKE Board: 3rd gen. Intel Core i5-3427U (up to 2x 2.80 GHz)
    • DC3217IYE Kit / DC33217GKE Board: Intel Core i3 3217-U (2x 1.8 GHz)
    • DC3217BY Kit / DC33217CK Board: Intel Core i3 3217-U (2x 1.8 GHz)
    • DCCP847DYE Kit / DCP847SKE Board: Intel Celeron 847 (2x 1.10 GHz)

Read More »vSphere 5 Homelab – ESXi on Intel NUC

ESXi 5.x Installation on Intel NUC fails with "No Network Adapters"

When you try to install ESXi 5.x on an Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) system, the installation fails with the following error message:

No Network Adapters

No network adapters were detected. Either no network adapters are physically connected to the system, or a suitable driver could not be located. A third party driver may be required.

Ensure that there is at least one network adapter physically connected to the system before attempting installation. If the problem persists, consult the VMware Knowledge Base.

3rd Generation Intel NUC Models:

  • Intel NUC DC53427HYE
  • Intel NUC DC3217IYE
  • Intel NUC DC3217BY

4th Generation Intel NUC Models:

  • Intel NUC D54250WYK
  • Intel NUC D34010WYK
  • Intel NUC D54250WYKH
  • Intel NUC D34010WYKH

5th Generation Intel NUC Models:

  • Intel NUC5i7RYH
  • Intel NUC5i5RYH
  • Intel NUC5i5MYHE
  • Intel NUC5i5RYK
  • Intel NUC5i3RYH
  • Intel NUC5i3MYHE
  • Intel NUC5i3RYK

This message is caused by missing Gigabit Ethernet Controller drivers that are not included in the ESXi Base Image. To fix that, you have to create an customized ESXi Image and add the proper drivers.

Tested with:

  • VMware ESXi 5.0
  • VMware ESXi 5.1
  • VMware ESXi 5.5

Read More »ESXi 5.x Installation on Intel NUC fails with "No Network Adapters"

VMware VDP Required Permissions

In some environments you might have to reduce the permissions given to the vSphere Data Protection (VDP) Backup User to as few as possible. The documentation provided by VMware is a little bit ambiguous on that topic. The permissions given in that post are at least required for the following purposes:

  • VDP backup user (The user that the appliances uses to talk to the vCenter Server)
  • Configure and Add Backup/Restore Jobs
  • See the vSphere Data Protection button in the vSphere Web Client

Read More »VMware VDP Required Permissions

VMware Workstation 10 Released - What's New?

VMware Workstation 10 is now available for download. There are some great new features that have been added to the new release including OS support for Windows 8.1, SSD Passthrough and VM Hardware Version 10. As always, the release is available as free Trial (30 Days), Update (119,- USD ex VAT) and Full Version (249,- USD ex VAT).

VMware-Workstation-10

What's new?

  • Guest OS Support for Windows 8.1
  • Virtual Machine Hardware Version 10
  • 16 vCPUs, 8 TB disks, 64GB memory
  • SSD Passthrough
  • 20 virtual networks
  • USB3 streams support
  • Virtual Tablet Sensors
  • Advanced Restrictions (Expiring VMs)
  • Multiple Monitor Navigation
  • Power Off Suspended Virtual Machines

Read More »VMware Workstation 10 Released - What's New?

HP Proliant Gen8 Agentless Management floods ESXi and vCenter Logs

Hewlett-Packard introduced a new component called HP Agentless Management within their Gen8 Series. This feature is extensible though an agent running inside the operating system, in that case the ESXi Host. The package (hp-ams) is included in all customized VMware images provided by HP and the HP ESXi Offline Bundles. Unfortunately this package create some issues caused by excessive local logins. This might pointlessly blow up the database and logfiles. You can check that problem by opening the Event-Log provided by the ESXi Host which is flooded with the following messages:

User root@127.0.0.1 logged in as
User root@ logged out (login time: , number of API invocations: , user agent: )
User root@127.0.0.1 logged in as
User root@ logged out (login time: , number of API invocations: , user agent: )

hp-ams

In this post i am going to show how to workaround this issue and remove the hp-ams from you ESXi Host, and how to build a new image without that package.

Read More »HP Proliant Gen8 Agentless Management floods ESXi and vCenter Logs